Django’s development team is strongly committed to responsible
reporting and disclosure of security-related issues. As such, we’ve
adopted and follow a set of policies which conform to that ideal and
are geared toward allowing us to deliver timely security updates to
the official distribution of Django, as well as to third-party
distributions.

Most normal bugs in Django are reported to our public Trac
instance, but due to the sensitive nature of security issues, we ask
that they not be publicly reported in this fashion.

Instead, if you believe you’ve found something in Django which has
security implications, please send a description of the issue via
email to security@djangoproject.com. Mail sent to that address
reaches a subset of the core development team, who can forward
security issues into the private committers’ mailing list for broader
discussion if needed.

Once you’ve submitted an issue via email, you should receive an
acknowledgment from a member of the Django development team within 48
hours, and depending on the action to be taken, you may receive
further followup emails.

Note

If you want to send an encrypted email (optional), the public key ID for
security@djangoproject.com is 0xfcb84b8d1d17f80b, and this public
key is available from most commonly-used keyservers.

The two most recent Django release series receive security
support. For example, during the development cycle leading to the
release of Django 1.5, support will be provided for Django 1.4 and
Django 1.3. Upon the release of Django 1.5, Django 1.3’s security
support will end.

When new releases are issued for security reasons, the accompanying
notice will include a list of affected versions. This list is
comprised solely of supported versions of Django: older versions may
also be affected, but we do not investigate to determine that, and
will not issue patches or new releases for those versions.

Our process for taking a security issue from private discussion to
public disclosure involves multiple steps.

Approximately one week before full public disclosure, we will send
advance notification of the issue to a list of people and
organizations, primarily composed of operating-system vendors and
other distributors of Django. This notification will consist of an
email message, signed with the Django release key, containing:

A full description of the issue and the affected versions of Django.

The steps we will be taking to remedy the issue.

The patch(es), if any, that will be applied to Django.

The date on which the Django team will apply these patches, issue
new releases and publicly disclose the issue.

Simultaneously, the reporter of the issue will receive notification of
the date on which we plan to take the issue public.

On the day of disclosure, we will take the following steps:

Apply the relevant patch(es) to Django’s codebase. The commit
messages for these patches will indicate that they are for security
issues, but will not describe the issue in any detail; instead,
they will warn of upcoming disclosure.

Issue the relevant release(s), by placing new packages on the
Python Package Index and on the Django website, and tagging the
new release(s) in Django’s git repository.

Post a public entry on the official Django development blog,
describing the issue and its resolution in detail, pointing to the
relevant patches and new releases, and crediting the reporter of
the issue (if the reporter wishes to be publicly identified).

Post a notice to the django-announce mailing list that links to the blog
post.

If a reported issue is believed to be particularly time-sensitive –
due to a known exploit in the wild, for example – the time between
advance notification and public disclosure may be shortened
considerably.

Additionally, if we have reason to believe that an issue reported to
us affects other frameworks or tools in the Python/web ecosystem, we
may privately contact and discuss those issues with the appropriate
maintainers, and coordinate our own disclosure and resolution with
theirs.

The full list of people and organizations who receive advance
notification of security issues is not and will not be made public.

We also aim to keep this list as small as effectively possible, in
order to better manage the flow of confidential information prior to
disclosure. As such, our notification list is not simply a list of
users of Django, and merely being a user of Django is not sufficient
reason to be placed on the notification list.

In broad terms, recipients of security notifications fall into three
groups:

Operating-system vendors and other distributors of Django who
provide a suitably-generic (i.e., not an individual’s personal
email address) contact address for reporting issues with their
Django package, or for general security reporting. In either case,
such addresses must not forward to public mailing lists or bug
trackers. Addresses which forward to the private email of an
individual maintainer or security-response contact are acceptable,
although private security trackers or security-response groups are
strongly preferred.

On a case-by-case basis, individual package maintainers who have
demonstrated a commitment to responding to and responsibly acting
on these notifications.

On a case-by-case basis, other entities who, in the judgment of the
Django development team, need to be made aware of a pending
security issue. Typically, membership in this group will consist of
some of the largest and/or most likely to be severely impacted
known users or distributors of Django, and will require a
demonstrated ability to responsibly receive, keep confidential and
act on these notifications.

Additionally, a maximum of six days prior to disclosure, notification
will be sent to the distros@vs.openwall.org mailing list, whose
membership includes representatives of most major open-source
operating system vendors.

If you believe that you, or an organization you are authorized to
represent, fall into one of the groups listed above, you can ask to be
added to Django’s notification list by emailing
security@djangoproject.com. Please use the subject line “Security
notification request”.

Your request must include the following information:

Your full, real name and the name of the organization you represent,
if applicable, as well as your role within that organization.

A detailed explanation of how you or your organization fit at least
one set of criteria listed above.

A detailed explanation of why you are requesting security
notifications. Again, please keep in mind that this is not simply
a list for users of Django, and the overwhelming majority of users
of Django should not request notifications and will not be added to
our notification list if they do.

The email address you would like to have added to our notification
list.

An explanation of who will be receiving/reviewing mail sent to that
address, as well as information regarding any automated actions that
will be taken (i.e., filing of a confidential issue in a bug
tracker).

For individuals, the ID of a public key associated with your address
which can be used to verify email received from you and encrypt
email sent to you, as needed.

Once submitted, your request will be considered by the Django
development team; you will receive a reply notifying you of the result
of your request within 30 days.

Please also bear in mind that for any individual or organization,
receiving security notifications is a privilege granted at the sole
discretion of the Django development team, and that this privilege can
be revoked at any time, with or without explanation.

If you are added to the notification list, security-related emails
will be sent to you by Django’s release team, and all notification
emails will be signed with a key authorized to issue Django
releases. The list of authorized keys is in the Django releasers
file.